If I were a betting man, I would bet that the total number of decoders sold since the beginning of DCC by all decoder manufacturers is slightly less than one million. I would bet my life savings on the grand total to date being less than two million. I would also bet the farm that the annual sales of decoders for 2011 would be less than 200,000 (and probably less than 100,000).
Why? Because Crandel is usually right in there feeding the fire. Personally I’m getting kind of fed up with this forum. If most of the cry babies here spent half their time on their layouts instead of crying about the cost of model railroading on this site then maybe they would become better modellers. THE COST OF EVERYTHING IS GOING UP PEOPLE NOW GET OVER IT!!! If you don’t like the fact that model railroading is costing you more money then stroll on and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. This constant crying about everything really brings into question just what the roles of our moderators are.
Millions of decoders? Possibly, but not SOUND decoders. No way are sales of soudn decoders in the millions of units. POSSIBLY non-sound, although I kind of doubt that too. but certainly more non-sound then sound. Which is why you can get a motor decoder for $12, or Bachmann essentially throws them in for ‘free’.
And comparing price of a German made decoder, in a time of a weak US dollar - perhaps some basic economy lessons would be helpful.
I feel that some answers are exaggerated and disproportionated. Why to involve the Moderator? Has been any abuse or insult?? The topic is out of place? NO: just people in the same hobby thinking differently, just this. This is America, and America means Freedom. If somebody is bothered, or I must leave our hobby because I don´t think same than some fellows,…something is wrong. Bye
True, calculator and computer prices have fallen dramatically but that market includes several million buyers. Model railroad sound decoder manufacturers are fighting for a market that incudes only a few tens of thousands of buyers. There is insufficient volume involved to expect prices to fall as rapidly as has happened with calculators and computers.
Lets be clear here…this isnt “America”…these are forums, and hence, WORLD domain.
Bye? A bit dramatic, dont you think?
My point is, why are we wasting our time and forum space on such topics as “why so much?”. We should be talking about “how to ballast” or “how to paint”. Not…“why so much”.
I will add that there are many ways to be FRUGAL in this hobby. It just costs you your time, nothing more.
Like I said, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I’ve been on this forum for a long time and the recent Ebay bashing and the Cost Of Modeling posts are just really starting to bother me. If you can’t afford a few extra dollars for modeling supplies, decoders, locomotives, rolling stock etc then you really can’t afford to be in the hobby to start with. If you don’t like Ebay’s costs then don’t go on the website. All this negativity by guys like you really bring the hobby down and probably sway people from even getting into it. I always tell people, once your initial cost of a few loco’s and some box cars are made then you can go in what ever direction you want to. It can be a very inexpensive hobby if you want it to be. You can have a simple layout and only own what you need or you can be like me and buy a ton of stuff I really don’t need(read that as I like to collect). You saying this is America is funny. What has America become? A bunch of cry babys that (female dog) about every little thing that doesn’t go their way? Oh my god, a cup of coffee just went up 5 cents at my favorite coffee shop. I’ll show them and go on my favorite coffee forum, complain and get a whole bunch of pats on the back for voiceing my opinion, lolol. This forum used to be a great place to come to and learn different techniques and tricks on how to build a great looking model railroad. Lately all it has become is a place to come to and l
I think the numbers are higher than your estimates. Basing this statement on the following article written almost ten years ago.
[quote]
Press Release
Rapid DCC Expansion Paces Model RR Industry by Jeff Wilson
Digital Command Control set and component business has become one of the fastest growing segments in the model-railroading industry, which otherwise is in somewhat of a holding pattern. Certainly retailer participation in DCC is on the fast track.
“The growth in DCC decoder sales has been exponential,” says Zana Ireland of Digitrax. “We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of users, both new modelers who are fascinated by the technology as well as the ‘old heads’ who have decided that DCC is the thing to do.”
Debbie Ames, director of sales for Lenz Agency of North America, agrees. Lenz reports it sold 190,674 decoders worldwide in 2000 alone and has made and sold more than 1 million since 1988. Ames notes that in earlier years the DCC business was growing at more than 100% a year. She estimates that 14% to 18% of the market now uses decoders and expects that to hit 50% in the next sever
Good thing I’m not a betting man - I would have lost the farm.
I think the growth projections were a little optimistic - the 50% penetration point of locomotive sales was probably finally reached a year or two ago. When I prepared my estimate, I forgot about all the cheapie Lenz decoders going into Bachmann locomotives.
There is a difference between a locomotive equipped with a dual mode decoder, and a decoder-equipped locomotive on a DCC layout. But I did say decoders sold - which would include all sales from the decoder manufacturers, and not at retail points - and I was wrong. Probably by an order of magnitude.
I have been following this thread for a while - Having managed a train department in a hooby shop I have a few thoughts:
First, using the long established industry standard markups, IF, and do say if, the hard cost to produce is $15 than the MSRP is easily $100.00. Then, sold direct to a retailer rather than through a distributor, a discounted street price of $75.00 would be realistic - we are not far from that now, leading me to beleive the cost to produce is still higher than that in the relatively small quantities of this industry.
There might well be 5-7 million decoders of all types already in circulation out there, but broken down by type, and brand, that’s not very many as modern electronics manufacturing goes.
It is still my belief that DCC has captured almost all of the existing modelers it will capture and that useage is about 50% among HO and N scale modelers. Much less among the larger scales, maybe as low as 15-20%.
I do believe DCC will capture most of those who enter the hobby from here on out - easily 80% or more. But that “conversion” by atrition will take quite some time.
I’ll wing a guess, I think there are likely about 50,000 modelers who use DCC. If they each have 50 DCC equiped locos - factory or aftermarket - that’s at least 2.5 million, plus what is “on the shelves” for sale.
I don’t use DCC on my home layout, but I am invloved with the layouts of a number of modelers who do, they all have more than 50 locos with DCC at this point.
As for sound decoders and their cost - well $15 would be too much for me since the sound quality of any HO scale onboard sound system is not good enough to make me want sound in my locos.